Herbs against scurvy.

With the word scurvy, most people think directly of voyages of discovery and of the unfortunate sailors, who in the past have so often been victims of this dreaded disease. “the scurvy of the sea. “But actually that sea had nothing to do with scurvy. Everywhere people ate food with insufficient vitamin C for a long time, scurvy occurs. The

first descriptions. It is believed that in the Papyrus Ebers (ca. 1500 BC) a description of scurvy has already been found, but the first descriptions of a disease that can be sure as scurvy can be found in the Papyrus Ebers (ca. 1500 BC). Jacques de Vitry describes in his Histoire des croisades that the men suffered from a disease in which the soft tissues of the limbs became hard, blue spots appeared, inflammation of the gums were observed and the sick as a result of

The first descriptions of sea scurvy appear in the 16th century. In the period of the great voyages of discovery, which began at the end of the 15th century, scurvy was the main cause of death on board. by the French explorer Jacques Cartier. The special thing about Cartier's description is that he describes not only the disease but also a cure, and then a medicine used by the inhabitants of the land. In his story about the fate of the crew of the ship Hermina, which was frozen in the Canadian St. Lawrence River in the winter of 1536, we read how scurvy suffered not only by the crew but also by the local population. The French were at first a bit suspicious, but eventually tried this drink, and they too healed. The tree with these medicinal properties called Cartier 'Ameda'. is thought to be the Thuja occidentalis, others keep it on a spruce.The drink, in later reports called 'sprucebear' or beer of spruce branches, was also used on mainland Europe as a therapeutic and prophylactic for scurvy, among others by the soldiers of King Charles XII (1682-1718).

In the gardens on Cape of Good Hope, as well as lemons, spoonful leaves and horseradish were grown. These crops, as well as streettip, primrose, watercress and sticky, were also a valued remedy for scurvy. at scurvy was already so widely known at the end of the 16th century, that the English called the plant 'scurvy grass'. A very visual description of the use of spoon leaves from the same period can be found in the journal of the wintering on Nova Zembla. The third time an Amsterdam ship sailed to try to get to China along the north of Europe. The intention was to overwinter and continue the journey in the spring. That wintering became a tragedy: the ship got stuck in the ice, and the crew had to provide shelter under harsh conditions. They built a primitive hut with parts of the ship, and in this' Preserve Huys' winter was spent.

Only in June of next year the ice had melted so far that one could accept the return journey. But the crew who survived the winter were so weak by the scurvy that they could hardly gain the strength to pull their ship again. On 31 July 1597, Captain Willem Barentz wrote in his diary that they found spoon leaf and that this find: “Wonderlich did They ate these leaves with their hands, for they had heard much say of their power in Hollandt, but they had more than they had hoped or congregated, and they had much to say of their power in Hollandt, which were more than they had hoped or congregated. It helped her so merckelyk and haestigh, that they were even astonished,